


intergalactic life forms

by thelotusflower



Category: South Park
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Aliens, Angst, Canon Compliant, Coming of Age, Conspiracy Theories, Fluff and Angst, Gender Fluid Kenny, Getting Back Together, High School, Humor, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Road Trips, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, creek - Freeform, twenny friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26586814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelotusflower/pseuds/thelotusflower
Summary: When Clyde asked him if he wanted to go on a road trip to San Fransisco, he wasn’t expecting to to go on a spontaneous alien hunt with his ex-boyfriend who he may or may not still have feelings for, but that is exactly what happens.
Relationships: Craig Tucker/Tweek Tweak
Comments: 16
Kudos: 82





	intergalactic life forms

**Author's Note:**

> hello, this is super long so I’m gonna be short with my notes ~ I really enjoyed writing this and it was my first time really doing something out of the box so I hope it turned out well. I pretty much like it for the most part. Please enjoy. ❤️

Initially, when Clyde invited him to go on a road trip to San Francisco, he said no; _then_ , Clyde said “ _come on, it’s the last time we will all get to be together before college starts,_ ” and he said no again. It wasn’t until his mother gave him the ultimatum of visiting his grandparents in Florida, or going to San Francisco that he even really _considered_ it.

His grandparents are conservative Christian assholes who make not-so-subtle remarks about his sexuality every chance they get, but then again, his friends are not much better. Clyde has terrible music taste, Jimmy has god-awful jokes, Token is a complete smartass, and then there is Tweek and everything that goes along with him. 

It’s not that he is _mad Tweek_ is going. In fact, he would rather Tweek go than himself, but it’s just _awkward_ — it’s not that he hates him, or anything, it’s just that he has absolutely no idea how to talk to him. He hasn’t known for years. 

Most of the time it’s bearable — they spend time together but it’s _short, crowded, sporadic;_ but going on a _eighteen hour_ road trip with the guy, and then spending the whole week thereafter together? along with the _eighteen hour_ road trip back home? It just seems like a probable theory of what hell is.

Due to his lack of decision making though, his mother made the decision for him— he is going to San Francisco.

He is pretty sure his mother thinks she is doing him this _great_ thing — this wonderful, _better_ option to get away from the scorn of his paternal grandparents, but _honestly_ , listening to them go on about how being gay is a sin, and how he will be damned to hell for the rest of eternity is somehow probably better than the actual hell itself he is about to walk into.

His mother told him it was too late by the time of his objection— she already bought the plane tickets for Florida and was not going back to buy one for her son. Honestly, a little fucked up, if you ask Craig.

So, here he is, waiting for Token’s 2021 Audi SQ7 — an 80,000 dollar graduation gift from his parents — to make an appearance around the corner and escort him into his own personal hell for the next eight days.

It’s six am and it’s fucking cold. Even though it’s June in South Park, it doesn’t mean shit to low temperatures in the mornings. His parents stand beside him as if they are waving him off to war; his mother pestering him repeatedly about his luggage and his father standing there silently beside her — his mother _nagging_ him for _just standing there silently_. 

After enduring his parents far too long, Token’s 2021 Audi SQ7 appears, coming to a stop in front of the curb of the Tucker household. His father helps him put his stuff in the trunk, and as they do so, Craig spots him — the back of his blonde head. He sucks in a breath.

His mother gives him a hug and his father, a flip of the bird, before he boards inside the car. Everyone has already been picked up — Token in the driver seat, Jimmy in the passenger, Clyde in the middle and _Tweek_ on the left side of him. Craig stares at the window towards his family.

Token tells everyone to put on their seatbelts which Craig ignores, resulting in Token turning around and saying, _Craig, that means you._ Craig flips him off in response and with a roll of the eyes and groan, Token just turns back around, seemingly giving up as he puts the car into drive.

He watches his window as his waving parents fall away. Clyde nudges him. 

“Dude. I’m _so_ glad you came — this is going to be _so_ fun, I promise you, _best trip of your life.”_

Craig looks over to him and sees he is holding up a bag of shrooms and wiggling his bushy eyebrows, resulting in him immediately wincing and gauging Tweek’s reaction behind him, but the blonde is just staring out the window.

“ _Clyde.”_ Token inserts himself before Craig can respond. “I told you not to bring those.”

“Tweek said it was fine!”

Craig eyes Tweek. He is still looking out the window.

“That’s not the only reason I didn’t want you to bring them! It’s _illegal._ If we get pulled over, I don’t care if they’re on you — you know I’m going to be the one who is blamed for it!”

“We won’t get pulled over,” Clyde waves him off. “Besides if we do, I’ll just eat them all — case solved.”

Through the rearview mirror, Token gives him an incredulous look before shaking his head and possibly shuddering. Jimmy turns his head around at Clyde with a grin, “s-s-save s-some for me, C-Clyde.”

“Oh you know I _will,_ dude,” Clyde responds with a grin and a nod. He bumps his fist with Jimmy, then finally puts the drugs away and Craig just shakes his head because this is already turning out to be as horrible as it seemed it would be.

Craig does not wait for Clyde to start playing horrible music, but instead places his AirPods in his ears — a gift from Token, actually, and part of the reason Token is probably his closest friend of the four.

He rests his head against the window and manages to fall asleep.

* * *

  
  


When he wakes up they are at a gas station in Wyoming. Craig is not sure how long it’s been but apparently long enough for Token to give up the wheel and hand it to Clyde.

Token said he would cover gas and housing expenses on this trip — his friends just have to buy their own food supplies. Craig buys some beef jerky and sour patch kids, eyeing Clyde as he has a near meltdown over what snack he should choose. He rolls his eyes and goes to check out.

Tweek stands before him in line. He notices he got a Pure Leaf Tea and some sunflower seeds. It is still weird to see him not drink coffee. He remembers when they were kids, and they went to the _Grand Canyon_ with Token’s parents, Tweek got twelve coffees on the twelve hour drive — he bought those shitty Harbucks one that come in glass bottles and are stored in refrigerators. They had to stop seven times for Tweek to pee, which Craig distinctly remembers because his friends blamed _Craig_ for it; “ _dude, tell your boyfriend to stop drinking so much! I want to get there already.”_ As if Tweek would listen to _anything_ he told him to do, let alone to _stop drinking coffee._ Well, now, forces much bigger than Craig have stopped the blonde from drinking any of that stuff at all.

When they pile up back into the car, Jimmy, thankfully takes the middle, separating himself from Tweek. With Clyde now driving, Token refuses to sit anywhere else except the passenger seat in order to keep a close eye on him.

Craig doesn’t immediately put his AirPods back in — instead plugging them in to charge, even though they are only at forty percent battery life. Looking at the time and doing the math, Craig figures out they are seven hours into their eighteen hour drive, eleven hours to go.

Craig is due to drive next; Tweek does not have a license — nor does he think he has ever actually placed his foot on a gas pedal — and Token’s car is not equipped with the right adaptations to allow Jimmy to drive.

Clyde’s driving is less than pleasant; the feeling of constant push and pull of the acceleration, swaying Craig’s body back and forth. When he merges onto the highway, he jerks into the lane and almost gets cut off by a semi — resulting in Tweek screaming and Token yelling. He looks over to Tweek who has his eyes wide open, and is biting his nails. Craig sighs, shaking his head. Jimmy makes a bad joke and Clyde pouts; the situation sizzles itself out, but when Craig looks over at Tweek, he still looks nervous.

He doesn’t think he can fall back asleep again — not with Clyde’s poor driving skills and heavy sun glare hitting him directly in his right eye. 

He has more room back here without Clyde — Clyde is not exactly fat, but buff almost; heavier than most of his friends. Jimmy is strong too — has wide shoulders and big arms, but still seems to be less in the way than Clyde. With Clyde back here, he felt like he was constantly touching him.

Token is playing music now and asking for stuff to put on the queue. Jimmy offers up some rap songs and Tweek just says _Fleetwood Mac,_ not specifying which song — Craig _prays_ Token does not queue _Landslide_. 

Craig does not say anything, resulting in Token asking, “what about you Craig — anything you want played?”

His music taste is not exactly rangeful. He mostly just listens to the radio, which is probably seen as boring from his peers — in fact, he _knows_ it is seen as boring from his peers, with constant remarks from his friends, but it’s just what he listens to. 

“Just play something that won’t make me want to blow my brains out.”

“Uh… okay,” Token responds with uncertainty.

“Craig is just mad because you cannot queue the _radio_ ,” Clyde comments with a grin.

Craig flips him off.

It’s not like that is _strictly_ all he listens to. He likes 70’s Rock — _Fleetwood Mac,_ actually, but he supposes that probably comes from dating Tweek.

Everyone laughs at Clyde’s bad joke but Tweek, and he wonders if it is because he does not find it funny or if he just does not know that he always just listens to the radio instead of bothering with any personal playlist. He doesn’t let himself consider it too long.

* * *

  
  
  


The next time they stop, they pull into a McDonald’s. 

It’s dark now, and you can see the stars very well in the McDonald’s parking lot. They eat outside, stretching, Craig staring up at the sky. As he chews on his McChicken, someone comes up beside him.

“The stars are really beautiful.”

The voice nearly shakes him, shaking him even _more_ so because it’s Tweek who is talking. He gulps, staring over to him — Tweek is opening the passenger door. “Token said I could sit up here since I’ve been in the back the whole time, hope you don’t mind.”

Craig shakes his head, murmuring out, “it could be worse,” and immediately cringing at the statement — he meant it as a joke; a poke at their friends, but Tweek just looks at him blankly. He then proceeds to climb into the passenger seat, the door closing behind.

“ _God dammit_.” He mumbles to himself.

Clyde drove for five hours and now it’s Craig’s turn. Everyone else is piled up already in the car; Craig just has to take the seat behind the wheel. He throws out the mcchicken wrapper and McDonald’s bag before entering the car.

There Tweek is as promised — in the passenger seat, looking down upon his phone, the blue light glowing against his face.

He opens the GPS and starts the car without music. His friends don’t complain — instead they have their eyes closed and heads pressed against pillows; they are taking a nap. Craig does not know if he should feel honored Token trusts him enough to sleep, or pissed that they are just leaving him alone to drive in the dark — he probably feels a bit of both.

The silence in the air — beside the voice of the GPS — is awkward and agonizing. He usually doesn’t care about silence — prefers it when he is not in the presence of a friend, but with Tweek… with Tweek, silence has always been overwhelming.

He wonders if Tweek took his joke before the wrong way — most likely. Tweek takes a lot of things the wrong way, and Craig has been told his sarcasm is hard to get at times; that he sounds _too_ serious. _Whatever._ He looks over at Tweek for a second, still on his phone — wondering what he is doing.

“You can go to sleep if you want,” Craig voices, almost immediately regretting it because it’s not like he fucking needs permission from him to sleep. “I mean, like, I’ll be okay — I’m pretty awake, if you’re worried I’ll fall asleep at the wheel, or something.”

“Shit, man. Nngh, I wasn’t even thinking about that and now I am.”

Craig really is the worst.

“It’s fine though,” Tweek continues. “I’m not tired.”

Craig kind of wishes he _would_ go to sleep — it would erase this awkward tension. He wonders if Tweek feels it too or if he just doesn’t think anything of Craig at all; he could see that as a possibility.

The truth is, Tweek’s life is a lot more interesting than his own — a lot more happening in his life since they broke up multiple years ago — _five years ago._ It’s been a long fucking time, and while Tweek has changed immensely — barely twitching and without word tics; not drinking _coffee,_ and much, much more under the surface — Craig feels like he is _exactly_ the same. He feels like _nothing_ has happened in his life — the biggest thing being of what happened to his ex-boyfriend. Craig is probably not even _on_ Tweek’s radar.

“You can play music if you want…” Craig offers.

“I don’t have Spotify, or Apple Music… any of those. All I have is a Fleetwood Mac album downloaded on my phone.”

Craig feels stupid because _yeah,_ of course Tweek does not have anything like that. 

“I like Fleetwood Mac.”

“Okay. If you aren’t going to get sick of them…”

“I never have before.”

And he kind of regrets saying it as soon as it leaves his mouth because _fuck_ , that was _forever_ ago, and they were just children, and him and Tweek are _not_ friends, but the one unchanging thing about Tweek is his love for _Fleetwood Mac._

Tweek connects his phone to the Bluetooth speaker and the music starts — not _Landslide_ , thank God.

Craig is sure Tweek is just going to ignore his comment but then he says, “I could never tell if you actually liked them or if you just pretended to to make me happy.”

So their _relationship_ was real. He did not just imagine it all in his head. Tweek remembers it too.

He is not sure how to answer the question because, _yeah_ , part of it was to make Tweek happy but he did also _like_ the music, so. With bravery he says, “it was a little of both.”

He glances at Tweek — a semi-smile to his face. It sort of makes Craig’s heart skip a beat, but whatever. He focuses back on the road.

Tweek doesn’t respond though, leaving them in this heavy awkwardness in the air again that Craig is determined to flush out because it’s just way too overwhelming. 

“So…” he starts. “Are you going to college?”

He doesn’t know. All the colleges of his classmates were listed under their names in their graduation pamphlet, but Craig did not bother to even glance at it. 

“No,” he says, “not yet, anyway. I’m taking a year off, but I’m leaving South Park — Kenny and I are actually looking for apartments near Lakewood.” It’s not that far from the University of Denver— probably only twenty-five minutes. Not that it matters.

“That’s cool — good for you guys.”

He asked Kenny awhile ago — _are you and Tweek dating_ — he told him no, but honestly, Craig still doesn’t know if he _believes_ him. Kenny is a close friend, and also the _only_ other openly, _into-boys-_ boy, in South Park, besides him and Tweek. 

Kenny is a gender flulid pansexual and usually soughts out bi-curious boys — he said he has slept with a couple people in South Park — a couple _boys —_ but like the good friend and person he is, he won’t _out_ them. Craig can guess that one of these people is Butters, but other than that, he really has no clue. Kenny doesn’t stick to just _their_ grade though — he slithers through the whole student body.

He figures he has no reason to not believe Kenny — Kenny has no reason to lie, it’s not like Tweek’s sexual orientation is a mystery, but he still just _doesn’t._

“Are you excited for DU?

He is not surprised Tweek knows of his plans — all Clyde ever talks about is DU. He and Clyde are sharing a dorm— Jimmy is going to Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and Token with all his scholarships and parents’ money, is going to Yale — all the way across the country, but he has enough money to fly back every weekend if he wants to.

He knew Kenny was considering taking a year off, but apparently, now, he has made up his mind.

“I guess.”

Honestly, not really. It is just more school, but college seems like the next logical step on his ordinary life trail. His grades were actually good enough to get into DU, which was a surprise to both him and his counselors. He was going to be in a shit ton of debt though, probably working his life away to pay them off, but he figures that is normal — he just needs to escape South Park — the smallness, the craziness, the never changing people — it’s so insanely boring — even boring for Craig, which is saying something.

“Do you know what you want to go into?”

He shakes his head. He had google searched _how to become an astronaut_ at age seventeen, and after seeing all the extensive school work and effort to become one, he immediately gave up on the dream. 

“I don’t know.”

He doesn’t have many interests. He likes his guinea pig, but he doesn’t think he likes guinea pigs enough to become a vet.

“Do you know? What you want to do?”

Tweek lets out a long sigh and says, “hunt aliens,” which leaves Craig sort of speechless — he doesn’t know if this is a jab at him, or if he is serious.

Craig broke up with him over Tweek’s obsession with alien conspiracies — it was something that took up all of Tweek’s time. It became the only topic of conversation. For weeks, he was so harbored on the idea of aliens — on an invasion he believed took place in South Park. It got to the point where he wasn’t sleeping — he would just sneak out at night and go to the place in the woods where he _swore_ their UFO landed. It all got too much for Craig — his obsession was unhealthy, and maybe Craig was even jealous at the lack of attention his boyfriend was providing him — he broke up with him during the summer between seventh and eighth grade.

He honestly didn’t think the break up would _last_ — they broke up numerous times before; most grade school and junior high relationships sort of worked that way, as unhealthy as it sounds. He thought it would last a week, and then they’d be together again — _Tweek’s alien obsession, yesterday’s news_ — but it didn’t work that way. Tweek continued through his obsession, and their banter which followed their break-ups sort of just continued until through the end of the summer.

But even then, there was hope.

It wasn’t until the day before eighth grade started that everything really went to shit. Rumors of the Tweaks lacing their coffee with meth started flying around town; he tried to talk to him, but he locked himself in his room and didn’t come out, would not talk to _anyone._

When he did return to school, two weeks later — he was a _mess._ Craig tried to talk to him then, but he was just… quiet and _still_ — that was the weirdest part, that he wasn’t twitching and jittering — he wasn’t stammering. He was just _still._

Something had changed inside him and knowing the truth — the truth of what it was; what _changed_ — Craig actually threw up in the bathroom.

He never has known what to say since — he hasn’t tried _talking_ to him about it _since._

Tweek lives with his maternal grandmother now — in South Park, at his parents’ old house. Apparently, his mother was coerced into the whole thing — manipulated by his father, but it still didn’t make sense to Craig how she could do that. They were still in prison, rightfully so — they were charged for at least Drug Distribution and Child Abuse and Neglect, probably more — Craig doesn’t know all the details. He knows his parents to this day, claim that Tweek getting hooked on meth was a mistake — they had mistakenly given him the wrong brew a couple different times, causing an addiction for the boy, which led them to to try to subdue it with _more_ meth. _Logical._

Craig doesn’t know if he believes the story. On one hand, his parents barely paid any attention to Tweek and his odd behavior; on the other, they _must_ know what they were doing.

Around the end of eighth grade, when everything was starting to kind of settle, that’s when he noticed Kenny and Tweek hanging out — sitting together at lunch, on the bus, walking home together. Tweek still kind of seemed _gone_ — but he was at least _talking_ . Not to Craig, but _someone._

Kenny said that he understood Tweek — the meth stuff, anyway. He said his parents cooked the meth for Tweek’s parents — but Tweek’s parents did not out the McCormicks in court. Craig thinks there is something bigger going on; someone bigger than the McCormciks and the Tweaks, which is why they stayed silent about where the drugs came from. He knows it was not out of loyalty — they were offered reduced prison time if they talked, but they did not.

He realizes now that he has still not answered Tweek. He doesn’t know what to say. He never knows what to say to him. So instead he just drives and settles within the silence, _Seven Wonders_ playing on the stereo.

_So long ago_

_It's a certain time_

_It's a certain place_

_You touched my hand and you smiled_

_All the way back you held out your hand_

_If I hope and if I pray_

_Ooh it might…_

  
  
  


The whole album plays through, the first song starting up again. Landslide does not play. Craig looks over and Tweek has fallen asleep, head against the window.

The GPS says four hours and twelve minutes to the destination. Craig does not bother to change the music, instead just listening to the songs repeat themselves. He listens to the album almost three whole times until he is in San Francisco.

Even in the dark, Craig can tell it’s extremely different than South Park — even Denver. The buildings are huge, the streets are steeper, it’s not pitch black when he drives.

He drives to Airbnb, finding it easier than expected. After parking, he looks at his phone. It is 1:19am. They made it here in nearly nineteen hours with their seldom stops.

His friends are still sleeping. He thinks of letting them stay here and just going in the Airbnb himself — serving them right for allowing him to drive all through the night by himself, but ultimately, he decides against it. Token has the lock code anyway.

“Hey assholes,” he tries, “we’re here.”

He shakes Clyde awake because he figures he will be the one loud enough to get everyone else up. 

“What?” Clyde grumbles, straining his neck. He slowly opens his eyes, “what the fuck?” he voices groggily.

“We are here.”

“Holy shit!” His eyes suddenly open, whipping his head around in all directions. “We are?”

Craig just nods.

As expected, Token and Jimmy wake up at the noise. Clyde tells them the good news, and Token gets out the car, along with Clyde — Jimmy asking one of them to grab his crutches from the back so he can follow suit.

Craig looks over to the blonde in the passenger seat. He is still sleeping.

In high school, Tweek started to hang out with them again — sleeping over at Token’s and Jimmy’s. He kind of floated between their group, and Kenny, and a couple other random kids Craig didn’t care to learn the names of. He definitely was broader with his range of friends than he was, but even through his floating, as Clyde said it, he was an _honorary_ member of “Craig and those guys” — also how Clyde worded it. Craig sometimes feels like Clyde is _really_ the leader of the group — he is the one who stayed in touch with Tweek, kept inviting him to their hangouts until it felt normal again — normal for everyone else but Craig at least.

Tweek is a heavy sleeper now; not like when they were kids and he could wake up at the drop of a feather. He has a theory that he is catching up on all the sleep he lost as a child.

He nudges his shoulder, unsure how to wake him. He rolls onto his side and his eyes flutter open in the most peaceful and graceful way that it actually makes Craig heart stop upon staring into Tweek’s gray eyes.

“We are here,” he tells him.

“Oh,” is his response. He sits up. “I didn’t realize I fell asleep,” but before Craig can come up with something to say, Tweek is getting out of the car and Craig follows his action.

Token has already unlocked the door to the house so Tweek just walks in, Craig behind him. 

“Holy fuck!” Clyde shouts, his head tilted back and looking up and around. “This place is _sick.”_

Craig looks around. The flat is pretty modernistic — all wooden floors, decent size kitchen, dining room and living space; an open floor space so easily to see under first scan. He half-recalls Token telling there are three bedrooms – Token will take the master, alone, and the other four have to work it out among themselves.

Craig assumed he would be with Clyde, but when he follows him into one of the rooms and sees Jimmy _and_ Clyde’s stuff on the floor, he is not too sure. He pulls Clyde over by the arm, “I thought we’d share a room?”

Clyde looks at him, raising his eyebrows. “Oh, well, Jimmy asked me. He isn’t that close to Tweek.”

“Are you serious.”

“What?”

“I literally never talk to him.” He deadpans. Then, adds, “and we literally dated.”

“Oh shit, I honestly forgot.”

Craig grits his teeth.

“I’m _sure_ you did.”

They stare at each other for a long moment. Clyde has always been so adamant that he asks Tweek out again. This is totally part of Clyde’s absolute bullshit plan, and he bets Jimmy is in on it too. Assholes.

“I’ll sleep with Jimmy. You can go with Tweek.”

“Dude, no, I already told Jimmy yes, I can’t ditch him for Tweek!”

Craig glares at him. He knows Clyde. Whenever he gets like this, it’s pretty much pointless to fight so he just exits the room to find the other empty one – well, _not_ empty one – Tweek is already in the room, sitting cross-legged on the bed, eyes on his phone.

He hesitantly walks into the room.

What the fuck does Tweek think about this? Does he even know Craig will be his roommate for the next week? Not only his _roommate_ , but sharing a _bed_ with him. He plans to kill Clyde; he will kill Clyde and then take his spot in Jimmy’s room. Hell, he will just kill Jimmy too, and have the room to himself.

“Hey, Tweek.”

Tweek eyes him from his phone.

“So. Looks like we are gonna be roomies…” God, why does he sound like _Clyde_ around him? He sounds so lame.

“It could be worse, right?”

He knows he is just mocking him from before but it still hurts a little. “Wow, that really does sound as bad as I thought.”

This elicits a small — fragrant, _possible_ smile from Tweek; at least Craig thinks. Tweek sets his phone down on the bed. 

“I want to sleep on the left side.”

He notices the left is farther from the window. He wonders if it has to do with his paranoia, but doesn’t ask. He just nods, and sets his bag down, feeling like he _can_ now.

“Okay.”

He grabs some stuff out of his bag and leaves the room without saying another word to Tweek. He goes to brush his teeth and change into more comfortable clothes. 

When he gets back, Tweek is under the covers and Craig swears his heart is going to just stop beating completely after this trip. “Do you want me to turn the light off?” He asks.

Tweek eyes him, murmuring out a soft, _sure,_ before Craig walks carefully over to the right side of the bed. He draws back the curtains on the windows before crawling into bed with his childhood sweetheart in a totally platonic way that makes his hatred for Clyde intensify.

He feels like he cannot breathe as he lies next to him. It’s dark, but his eyes are adjusting, and he can make out the lines of Tweek’s body — the hunch and the dip of his waist. He is facing the other way — unaware Craig is looking.

Craig inhales and turns the other way as well, feeling heavy.

He shuts his eyes and immediately falls to sleep.

* * *

When he wakes up, Tweek is not beside him and it’s Clyde who is in his bed, patting him awake; “BEACH TIME!”

Craig makes an effort to punch him but he does it with his eyes half closed so he misses as Clyde jumps away. “Get the fuck out of my room,” he grumbles into his pillow.

“TOKEN!” Clyde yells. “CODE BLUE!”

Token comes in a few seconds later, and like a parent would, tells him to get up — which Craig ignores, putting a pillow over his head.

Next thing he knows, he is being dragged both legs by the two boys.

“Don’t fucking touch me.” He growls, kicking them a way. He sits up. “I am up.”

“Fantastic,” Token smirks before leaving the room. Clyde on the other hand is sitting on the edge of his bed. Bad choice. Craig glares at him before pushing him off the bed, Clyde falling to the ground and wincing out in pain.

* * *

The beach is packed with people. Craig lays on a towel with his eyes closed — everyone else in the water. He is alone, until he is not — he can see a shadow next to him now, hears motion. He opens his eyes and sees Tweek.

He is applying sun screen to his porcelain skin and Craig cannot help but fucking _stare._ Tweek kept up with kickboxing, and it _shows._ His baby fat has all nearly turned into muscle.

Tweek clicks eyes with him and he immediately looks away.

“You’re so lucky that you don’t have to worry about this shit,” Tweek grumbles. Craig looks back over — he _is_ talking to him, wouldn’t it be rude _not_ to look? He is struggling to apply it to his back, trying to reach but unsuccessful with his short arms. “Ah, I fucking hate being this pale! It’s such an inconvenience.”

“Yeah, I really gotta send a thank you note to that random guy from peru my mom slept with.” 

From what Craig hears — his father broke off the engagement with his mother, resulting in her sleeping with some Peruvian foreign exchange student in her college English class — the semester ended and he returned to Peru before she even knew she was pregnant. She dropped out of college, and his father had come running back to her — even after finding out about him. They got married before he was born, and Craig’s dad tried to tell his parents — his homophobic grandparents — that the baby was his, but with his dark skin and black hair it was pretty fucking impossible to convince them. He eventually told them the truth, back when Craig was still a baby. He is pretty much convinced this is yet _another_ reason Craig’s paternal grandparents hate him.

“You ever actually want to reach out to him?”

“Nah,” he shrugs. “Too much work.”

Tweek is still focused on that spot on his back. Craig knows he did not actually reach it. 

Tweek groans. He eyes Craig, sighing slightly. “Can you apply this to my back?”

Craig’s heart ripples inside him. He swallows. “Sure.” He gets up on his knees, taking the bottle from Tweek. He stands in front of him, his back to him, on his knees as well. Even sitting on their knees, he towers over Tweek.

He splats some of the sunscreen on his palms and then with a deep breath, puts his palms against his back. His breath actually _hitches_ and he hopes Tweek did not hear. He rubs the lotion over his back in circular motions, taking his time to smear the lotion in. 

Tweek’s skin is _hot_ against his palms and Craig is pretty sure his own face is as well. He rubs it into his shoulders, and with a gulp, spreads it on his lower back as well.

He pulls away and says, “okay, you’re good,” averting his gaze to not look at Tweek at all because fuck — he is _this_ close to an awkward boner. He looks out to the ocean.

“Thank you,” Tweek tells him. He stands up, and Craig actually has to look up at him to see his face. Tweek puts a hand over his eyes to block out the sun as he speaks to him. “You just going to sit here like a bore?”

“I was planning to, yeah,” he responds.

“Come on,” he urges. He even puts a _hand_ out for Craig to take, and goddammit, he cannot ignore that. He grabs Tweek’s hand to pull himself up — ignoring the immediate sparks that ignite at his fingertips.

They both let go as he stands up. He already misses the touch.

They walk to where their friends reside and Craig goes in the water even though it’s fucking cold as shit but he doesn’t want to seem like a pussy in front of his friends — well, Tweek, really. He doesn’t care about what his other friends think, but he won’t analyze too long why he cares what _Tweek_ thinks.

It’s hard to _not_ check him out as his swim suit clings to his wet body, droplets of water across his stomach, slipping down his happy trail. He glances at the “v- shape” of the other boys torso and immediately has to look away as he feels a pit in his stomach swell.

Craig has always been lanky and skinny. He still thinks he is pretty _strong,_ able to take on Clyde and most of his other classmates through the years — but it doesn’t really _show._ He just looks lanky and lean. Muscle is impossible to accumulate when you are this tall.

He knows he is _cute_ at least; cuter than McCormick, so that is satisfying. Bebe actually _told_ him, all the girls thought he was the cutest boy in the grade — not that it actually matters because he is not into girls and their opinions are pretty much irrelevant to him. But it had to mean something.

Tweek though, Tweek was… something. His skin was so pale that it almost glowed; his eyes were huge and protruding; his gray irises piercing and immaculate. His lips were full and pink, perfectly shaped, set underneath a long Greek nose. His hair is slightly less blonde since he was a kid, but still very obviously blonde — especially in the sun. 

He is staring again and doesn’t realize until Clyde bumps into him, and says, “thinking about what you want to do to Tweek in bed later?”

Craig pushes him into the water in response, creating a big splash and all his friends looking over in response. The sudden attention was worth it though.

  
  


* * *

Sophomore year, Craig as Kenny if he and Tweek were dating. Kenny’s response was “no, Tweek and I are friends.”

As he sits here and stares at Tweek who smiles at his phone in a way that only means he is _talking_ to someone, he finds _himself_ texting Kenny.

Sophomore year was two years ago — they could be together _now._

_Are you and Tweek dating?_

He knows how it will look but he doesn’t care — he has to know and Kenny probably will keep his mouth shut about it anyways; he is trustworthy like that.

He gets a response faster than he expects.

_no, silly_

_Tweek doesn’t like girls ❤️_

He guesses _Princess Kenny_ is identifying as a girl today; she is gender fluid but most of the time identifies herself as boy. Craig is pretty sure when she addresses herself as a girl, she calls herself, _Princess Kenny_ still. Maybe he should ask her.

_Princess Kenny, right?_

_Yes 💖💖_

Craig thinks she could be more creative, but whatever; his question is answered.

  
  


* * *

  
  


They sit in some Mexican restaurant. Clyde ordered a burrito bigger than his entire head. Craig watches in horror as he actually _finishes_ it and decides he cannot finish his own enchiladas, pushing it away.

“So, I think we can get someone to buy us alcohol,” Token says. “No one is going to turn down a handicap kid.”

“I—I am f—f—f—f—ful—fully re—re—read—ready to g—ge—,”

“Fuck yes, this is totally going to work!” Clyde cuts in, grinning.

Craig glances at Tweek. He doesn’t think he drinks. He doesn’t say anything at least to show excitement, but he just looks down at his half finished tacos.

* * *

After successfully getting alcohol with Token’s plan, they head back to the Airbnb, sitting outside near the bonfire on the patio. There is a great view of the city, one they couldn’t see much of last night when they arrived at one am.

As he thought, Tweek does _not_ drink.

At one point, Tweek gets up from the bonfire to take a closer look at the view. It’s a few feet away from the bonfire. Craig finds himself getting up and following.

He stands beside him, not saying anything at first, but then, “this must be hard for you.”

Tweek eyes him curiously.

“With us drinking… and the shrooms…”

He is not sure why he is saying anything because he has had years to and hasn’t. 

“It’s fine,” Tweek retorts, looking away. “It’s not like I have an urge to even do it — I never wanted to in the first place.”

Craig winces. 

It’s always been hard on him which is fucked up because obviously it is harder on Tweek. He swallows, staring at the blonde.

Suddenly, he is not jealous of Kenny but happy Tweek has them — happy he has someone to escape with, even if it’s not Craig himself. He hangs his head low, and he isn’t sure why this is what he says next but it is, “when you said you are planning to hunt for aliens — what did you mean by that?”

He turns to stare at him. “I mean I’m going to hunt for aliens.”

He just stares for a moment because _what._ “Um,” he gulps. “How do you make … money doing that?”

“I don’t — at least at first until I find something to prove.”

Craig resists the urge to sigh. He looks away and at the sky — stars are just starting to peek out, but in a place like San Francisco, he suspects he won’t see much even at the dead of night with all light pollution.

“Why don’t you want to be an astronaut anymore?”

“It seems too hard.”

Tweek hums a little at this. “What are you going to college for then?”

“I don’t know.”

“So … you’re just going to waste your money?”

Craig stares at him. His eyebrows are arched. For someone who is fucking talking about hunting aliens, he doesn’t think he should make this much sense. “I figure I get the general stuff out of the way and then I’ll figure it out.”

Tweek nods, but he knows he doesn’t agree — doesn’t see it the way Craig does. _Whatever_. “I have to do something.”

“Why can’t you do something that makes you happy?”

He swallows. “You know I don’t like _things_ , Tweek. Not much makes me happy.”

Tweek sighs.

“Is chasing aliens — is that what makes _you_ happy?” He questions, staring at his ex-boyfriend.

His facial expression is something Craig cannot really read. His eyes shift around slightly and he bites his lip. “Can I show you something?” He asks.

“Sure?”

“Okay — but let’s go to our room — it needs to be private.”

Before Craig can object, Tweek is leaving, Craig quickly behind him.

They get into their room and Tweek is immediately dumping out the contents of his bag — notebooks and his laptop — Craig’s laptop actually. He totally forgot he gave him that.

“Is that _my_ laptop?” 

“Oh, fuck,” he glances at it, “you’re not still mad about that, right?”

“Whatever.” He dismisses, taking a seat next to him on the bed. Tweek puts in his password and then brings up some weird map, and pulls out his notebook, flipping through the pages.

Craig just watches him, dumbstruck.

“You remember when we were twelve and that girl went missing —,”

“And you were convinced it was an alien abduction — yes,” he answers in a sigh.

“Well, _Craig,_ ” Tweek shoots him a glare, “I’ve been tracking it for years now — multiple different girls have been abducted every year on the _same_ day since then. It’s always the _same_ age, _same_ day, _zero evidence_ — just vanishing out of existence.”

Tweek pushes the notebook into his hands. He looks down at the list of names — like Tweek said, there is one girl for every year; same day, same age, same zero amount of evidence.

“I’ve been keeping track of these cases — none of them have been solved; all but _one,”_ he says, pulling more papers out of his bag and shoving them into Craig’s hands. He looks down at some printed article about some girl name Sally Long who was just found two months ago after being missing for three years.

“They questioned her and she didn’t remember _anything_ !” There is a slightly frantic look in Tweek’s gray eyes. He is on the laptop, pulling something up, “but the doctors did tests and they found out she was _pregnant.”_

_“_ Wasn’t she like thirteen when she went missing?”

Tweek nods. “Yes — they all were.”

“How do you know that this has to do with _aliens ?_ It could just be some sick fuck who likes litte girls,” he throws the article back on the bed. “Maybe she just got away and forced herself to forget.”

“That’s what they are _saying_ ,” Tweek is not bothering to look at him, “but look where she lives,” he pushes the notebook back into his hands.

Craig eyes the notebook page again for _Sally Long_ — _Abducted from San Jose, California._ A bad feeling forms in Craig’s gut as he stares at the words.

“She only lives fifty minutes from here! And I’ve been messaging her — she told me she thinks she was abducted by aliens, Craig! She said that they won’t put it in the papers — ah, they don’t want to scare the public but no one is fucking listening to her! She said she would meet up with me.”

Craig just stares blankly at the blonde — ranting in a manic way, flipping through papers and wide eyes. He honestly cannot believe any of this. It reminds him of seventh grade.

“You’re meeting up with her,” he deadpans, setting the notebook back down on the bed.

Tweek takes his eyes of scanning the laptop and papers to shoot him a pointed glare. “Yes,” he stares. He goes back to sorting through papers as he continues, pulling up a map on his laptop that it appears he has drawn on — must be a PDF or something. Tweek used to be so bad with computers. It was cute, Craig had to basically teach him everything. Apparently, now, he is better. “I’m taking the bus and transit there — the bus stop is two miles away, and then I have to take the bus to Porter Ave. and then I will take the green line transit all the way to Redwood City and then I get on the _green_ transit and it should take me all the way to San Jose if I stay on.”

Craig just stares _again_ — dumbfounded. 

“What are you planning to tell the others?”

“I already told Clyde that I want to visit my cousin. He knows I’m going tomorrow.”

Craig opens his mouth and then shuts it. He stares at Tweek — at the boy who feared his own fucking shadow at times — about to go some alien quest through suberbia California.

“Why are you telling me the truth,” he deadpans. He picks up another article off the bed. It’s the article from South Park. The girl, like the rest, was thirteen — in _their_ class but someone Craig never bothered talking to. It definitely was weird. It was scary, even, but weird shit happened in South Park all the time, and she honestly wasn’t the first kid to go missing or _die,_ presuming she is _dead,_ considering they never found her. In fact, one of Craig’s close friends at one point, Jason, died — he was overall desensitized to the craziness of South Park. It was a weird fucking town where weird, tucked up shit was always going on — and unlike Tweek, who wanted to understand it — dig into the mysteries — he just wanted to get the fuck away from it all. It’s another reason why he doesn’t dig into his Peruvian Heritage — that trip with Stan’s gang to Peru was fucking _enough_ and he did not want to acknowledge any of it — he just wanted to get as far away from the weirdness of South Park as humanly possible.

“I don’t know. You asked.”

It is a stupid answer because he imagines Clyde _asked_ too. Clyde fucking asks tons of questions — way more than Craig. He probably asked what Tweek’s plans were after graduation, and Tweek probably said something fucking normal — sacrificing him from the fucking chaos, but no, Tweek tells _Craig_ — fucking most boring person in the town — he is planning to “hunt aliens.”

_Okay._

  
  


“And…,” Tweek gulps. He stares down at the piles, biting a lip. He looks up at him, innocence in his gray eyes — beauty and grace; the reason Craig doesn’t mind listening to all Tweek’s crazy conspiracies. “I was hoping — ah, I was hoping maybe you would come with me?”

Craig stares blankly because _what the fuck is even happening_ . For years, _years,_ Tweek barely spoke to him — didn’t really acknowledge their past, and in all fairness, Craig kind of did the same, but _this,_ this _question,_ it is like nothing has changed between them. They are kids. Tweek is looking up at him with those gray eyes full of hope and slight fear, asking Craig to come with him through paranoia.

He swallows.

“Um,” he stiffens. “I don’t know.”

Tweek immediately falls flat, looking away and down. 

It’s awkward and overwhelming. He sets the notebook back down gently. “This is just… crazy, Tweek.”

“You always thought I was crazy!” He nearly shouts, causing Craig to nearly jump back at the sudden change in the atmosphere. His eyes are wide and narrowed, rage clearly shooting out of them. His mouth twitches up like it always does whenever he gets this mad. “Whatever. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything; I don’t know why I bother,” the coldness in his tone almost gives Craig chills as he watches his former love gather up all the notebooks and papers, shoving them back into his bag. He shuts the laptop shut with much more force than necessary, shoving it into the bag as well.

“Tweek. Look, don’t be like that… I don’t… I don’t think you’re crazy.”

Tweek gives him a skeptic look; squinting his eyes, obviously not believing him. Craig does not even know if he believes the words because well, all this is pretty fucking crazy.

“I’m going to go on a walk.” He stands up, “If anyone asks.”

He watches Tweek leave the room, helpless to the situation.

Craig goes back outside with the rest, each of them giving him curious stares — eyebrows reaching upward, and he just rolls his eyes and flips them off. “We were just talking.”

“Mhmm,” Clyde takes a sip of his beer. Token and Jimmy break out laughing, and Craig just stares at the sky line — all the skyscrapers and buildings in view. How he hates the city. All he can think about is Tweek and those stupid aliens.

  
  


Tweek returns nearly half an hour later, very quiet upon arrival and through the rest of the night. He goes to bed earlier than the rest, and Craig follows.

Tweek is pulling some oversized T-Shirt out of his bag, along with a toothbrush and what appears to be facial moisturizer. Craig just stares at him as he does so, causing him to look up and say, “what?”

“I’ll go with you.”

Tweek stares. Craig stares back. For a moment he is sure Tweek is going to say he is no longer invited but he supposes his fear of going through the unfamiliar cities of California is bigger than his disdain for Craig at the moment. “Okay,” is all he says and then he leaves to go change and get ready for bed.

Craig knows him well enough that he is still mad — still angry at how he acted before, but he does not understand how he wants him to act in response to what he is saying — it’s absolutely _insane_ ; Tweek has to at least grasp that much. 

He isn’t sure.

He gets ready for bed, and Tweek tells him they are getting up at eight am to go which Craig kind of groans over but concedes. 

They go to sleep again, facing separate ways — Craig taking a peek of him before drifting to sleep.

  
  
  
  


Like Tweek promised, the alarm rings at eight am. When he opens his eyes, he sees that he has rolled over during the night, and so has Tweek. They fave each other. He stares at him and he stares back, the alarm still going off. It’s weird, staring at each other like this — Tweek being the first thing he sees upon waking up. 

Tweek blinks, and then grabs his phone on the side of the bed, shutting off the alarm. The trance breaks and Craig sits up too, stretching his arms up.

Tweek is already up and standing, digging through his bag for a fresh pair of clothes.

“Good morning,” Craig voices, staring over at him curiously.

“Morning’,” Tweek mumbles. “Get up, we have to go,” he demands, meeting his eyes again for the second time this morning. 

Craig resists the urge to roll his eyes and stands up, letting out a big yawn as he does so. “Why do we have to go so early?”

“Well, it’s fifty minutes driving but since we are taking the bus, and then the transit, and the other transit, it will probably take at least two hours, but we also have to walk to the bus stop, so that’s another thirty minutes, and we have to meet up with her before her parents get home.”

Craig rubs his face and groans a bit, which he immediately regrets, when Tweek says, “don’t come then.”

“No. I’m coming.” 

He doesn’t know what really changed his mind — he just kept thinking about Tweek doing all this alone, Tweek alone walking to the bus, Tweek alone on the bus, Tweek alone on the transit, Tweek alone changing transits. From what he recalls from their childhood, Tweek was always terrified of using public transportation — always worried he would miss his stop and be lost forever, even though he has had a smartphone since probably third grade and could easily just find his way back with that or call someone — well, he guesses a normal child would call their parents, but Tweek’s parents sucked, so… but he could have called Craig.

He gets ready, scarfing down a banana and some granola bar he steals from Clyde’s stash before leaving. He gives one to Tweek but he says he does not want to eat Clyde’s food. Craig tells him he will tell Clyde he ate two, and hesitantly, Tweek grabs the granola bar from him and eats it.

Two miles normally does not seem like a long walk to Craig, but it does today. It’s probably because they are not talking, and while with anyone else, this would be preferable, it’s more torturous with Tweek.

He is still unsure _why_.

Maybe because at one point they _did_ talk — they talked for hours and hours, and he felt like he could talk to him about anything which he never felt with anyone before. The memory kind of makes him feel slightly nauseous almost; his stomach feeling like it’s twisting and churning inside him. The silence too — it used to be comfortable; it used to be relaxing. They could just _not_ talk; there would be no tension — it was just _nice._

They used to say _I love you;_ started since the end of fourth grade, but after they broke up, for _real_ , Craig kind of just brushed that off — how could you really love someone at such a young age? It was just stupid, puppy, meaningless words they would say to each other.

He was convinced it wasn’t real love, felt foolish for even pondering if it was, but as he stares at him now — blonde hair and gray eyes, short legs and ivory skin — he is pretty certain it _was_ love because this swelling in his heart — this inconsolable sadness he feels while looking at Tweek — the _pain_ is real, the pain is so fucking real, so maybe the rest of it was as well.

They finally get to the bus stop, but they have to wait for another bus which will probably take about ten or so minutes. They sit at a bench. Craig eyes the others waiting, some on the phone — some with a friend, a _couple_ who is leaning into one another and giggling. He darts his eyes away.

He notices Tweek’s leg is bouncing.

“Are you nervous?”

Tweek eyes him, “I don’t know,” he mumbles. He hums slightly — a strained hum. “I don’t like public transport.”

“I know you don’t,” Craig voices. Tweek’s expression softens.

The bus comes sooner than expected. They hop aboard. It reminds him of grade school.

They sit in one of the last rows — Tweek by the window and Craig on the outside. Tweek stares out the window as they begin to move, but then he is pulling out a binder from his backpack and opening it on their laps. 

He starts going over the stops again, rambling on about bus stops and transit routes. When he eventually stops, Craig says, “You really were thorough with all this.”

Tweek nods. He swallows. He is looking at him with hesitant eyes and Craig thinks he may just break under his gaze with how intense it is. “Can I tell you 

something else?”

“You already told me this much, I don’t see a reason for anymore secrets.”

“Clyde didn’t even invite me on this trip; I asked to come — I think he was happy, but I am still worried I am crashing — I don’t know, I kind of feel like I’m crashing, but I really wanted to talk to Sally and check out the place she was abducted at — oh yeah, we are also doing that, I forgot to mention it when you started being an asshole last night.”

Craig frowns. He just flips him off though at the insult, paying more mind to the rest. “First of all, why the fuck do you even care what Clyde thinks — he is _Clyde._ Second, he hasn’t mentioned it to me. When he brought it up to me, he acted like bringing you was always part of the plan — I think he is happy you’re here.”

“Were you mad I came?” The question is sudden and blunt, catcheing him off guard.

Sure, because of Tweek coming he almost went down to Florida to visit his homophobic grandparents, but he wans’t _mad_ at Tweek. It is complicated. “No,” he immediately assures him. 

Tweek nods. “Why did it take you so long to decide to come then?”

He is looking at him in _that_ way and Craig sighs. “I wasn’t _mad_ that you came…” he concludes, “but I don’t know. Um, I guess I kind of thought you might have hated me?”

“Why would I hate you?”

“I don’t know.” _Not being there for you when you’re parents were revealed to be fucking drug dealers who laced the coffee you drank like water._ Or _breaking up with you over an obsession you still seem to have. “_ I don’t know,” seems like a safer bet than saying these things though.

“Well, I don’t hate you.”

“I don’t hate you… either…”

Tweek actually smiles and Craig has to look away because he just _can’t —_ Tweek hardly smiles but when he does, it’s like finding one of the world’s seven wonders.

* * *

  
  


After getting off the bus, getting on a transit, getting of _that_ transit and onto another, and all the waiting in between — they finally get to San Jose. They are apparently meeting her at some coffee shop — Tweek just now tells him it’s another mile walking to the coffee shop.

As they walk, Craig thinks about the coffee shop — considers _getting_ a coffee. He is tired and it’s been a long, tasking trip here — getting on and off public transport, along with three miles of walking. He wants a coffee but he looks at Tweek, and doesn’t think he can actually do it. 

He can’t imagine how it must feel to love something so much and then learning it’s been the thing destroying you — sure it was the _meth_ that was doing the damage but it was laced in the coffee; it was _in_ the coffee, so coffee became poison too — became something for Tweek to avoid. 

He will get a black tea. There is caffeine in that too.

  
  
  
  


With his black tea and Tweek’s earl grey, they sit down at one of the tables in the corner. Tweek tells him Sally is on her way — riding her bike here. Craig wonders how far of a journey _she_ made to see them; he knows it cannot possibly be as long him and Tweek’s.

“Why is this so important to you?”

He never thought to ask — even back in seventh grade when he went on and on and forced Craig into the forest with him at two in the morning because he was too scared to be alone until he somehow wasn’t — Craig never asked.

Tweek eyes him through his eyelashes. They sit on the same side of the table so Sally can take the other. Tweek hesitates. “You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”

Craig frowns because honestly, _fair,_ but, “I still want to hear why.”

Tweek sucks in a breath. He glances at his phone. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.” He slumps in his seat, letting out a deep breath. “I’ll tell you after.”

Then his heart skips a beat because Tweek is letting him _in_ — the promise of the key to his world; his mind, his thoughts.

Soon, Sally arrives. She is wearing a long yellow sweater and dark blue jeans. Craig thinks it is odd because it is really fucking hot outside. How is she not _covered_ in sweat after riding her bike all the way here?

She sits down with them with an iced coffee drink in hold. She seems… off, but Craig figures that is normal for someone under her situation.

Tweek is nice — personable and easily friendly. Craig says hello, but he is too focused on her sweater and blue jeans, on the frightened look that haunts her eyes.

Tweek is warm — so warm in contrast to the girl — she seems cold — Craig honestly _feels_ cold from just being around her. It’s weird.

After introduction and some small talk, Tweek gets into it — his notebook sprawled across the table and pen in hand. Craig decided he could not look at the girl anymore and focused on Tweek’s hands instead — his handwriting is sloppy, big and wide letters — almost half cursive and half print, but it is easy for Craig to read the letters — maybe because of all the notes he and Tweek exchanged as kids.

“I remember a blue light — when I was abducted — that’s the best color I can think of for it but it wasn’t quite blue — it was something else, it was a mix of blue and something else — it was weird, and it was _cold_ . It was the dead of summer but it was _freezing.”_

Craig feels freezing now.

“I don’t remember a lot from the abduction, but I do remember looking down at earth — I remember seeing it like how they show from the satellites — it looked just like the satellites.”

Tweek was a really good listener — the way he prompted her and his little hums. He showed he _cared_ about what you were saying.

“How far away did it look?”

“Well. It didn’t look too far away — I don’t know. I could still see the outline of California,” she says in her very quiet tone, flicking her black hair out of her eyes. “But after that,” she swallows. “I don’t think I saw earth again — it was just _blackness_ outside the window — not even stars.”

Craig shivers.

“I don’t remember a lot, I’m sorry — it’s all… it’s fuzzy.”

“It’s okay.” Tweek promises, voice sweet and believable. “Just tell me what you _do_ remember — that’s all.”

“Okay. Well,” she clears her throat. “The next thing I remember was glowing figures — they were these glowing things — they were bald and their skin glowed. They didn’t look like humans. They didn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen. Sometimes they would just glow and other times they would have arms and legs but they were much longer than the arms or legs of a human.” She pauses thoughtfully. “They weren’t mean — they were… kind even. They treated us with care.”

“Us?” Tweek questions.

“There was lot of other girls — but I know there were others as well. Sometimes I heard screaming. But it was always far away — it was never us girls.”

“So they … they never hurt you?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t think so; it’s weird. It’s just so … weird. I don’t know if I should trust these memories. My doctor … he says that I could be making them up. They say I was pregnant — just had a miscarriage it looks like. I don’t remember having sex… I don’t remember anything like that… no one believes me,” she seems sad, “they all think I’m crazy.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy.”

Craig eyes the girl, she is sort of smiling.

“I liked being with them. It never felt forced… it kind of… it kind of felt like home. It felt like I was home. I liked being there — they were kind.”

“Did they ever say _why_ you were there — did they ever explain it?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know but all the girls — all us girls were all the same age. I think that’s how they grouped us.”

“Were the others scared?”

“No.”

Craig eyes Tweek and to his surprise, Tweek glances back at him, but then his eyes find their way back to the girl. “Did you ever see anyone else? Did you ever — was it just girls?”

“I don’t remember there being anyone else, no.”

Tweek asks a couple more questions but most of which have no answer. Eventually, Sally says she has to get going — her mother will be back soon. She mentions before she leaves of a device they had to erase memory — said she didn’t understand why they didn’t use it on her because they would use it on the others who got sent back to earth — she doesn’t know why she was sent back nor how she got sent back. She just showed up one day in the exact spot she went missing — the exact spot he and Tweek are going to next.

He asked Tweek if they could get food somewhere first because he was starving and Tweek said yes with some hesitation, obviously impatient. They had food at the coffee shop but he knew — even under that stable exterior while talking to Sally — Tweek was stressed, a slight tremor in his hand as he wrote and leg bouncing up and down beneath the table — the smell of coffee beans was immense.

After walking a couple blocks, they settle upon a sandwich shop. Craig gets an Italian sub and Tweek just gets a tiny salad that he barely eats.

When Craig is done, and Tweek has still barely touched it, he says, “dude, you should eat more.”

“I can’t — nngh, I am too nervous.”

He is unraveling slightly. He is becoming more jittery and unfocused. It reminds him of when they were kids — when he was on _meth_ but way less intense.

“Tweek.”

Tweek’s eyes focus on his.

He swallows, “what’s the … _rush?_ Maybe we can just … I don’t know, go to a park or something … take a breather.”

Tweek inhales, “don’t you want to get back as soon as possible?”

Craig thinks of what Clyde, Token, and Jimmy are probably doing — probably hitting on girls. Clyde and Jimmy were pretty determined to get some “California Pussy.” He feels sort of bad for Token, devoted to Nichole and having to deal with those douche bags alone, but he pushes the thought away.

“No. I’m in no rush at all.”

“O-okay,” he nods.

“How about you get that to go?” 

Tweek nods again.

“I’ll ask for a box,” Craig gives him a small smile and almost — almost puts a hand on his shoulder as he passes by him, but refrains — just because they are _hanging out_ does not mean he can just … do _that._

He asks for box from the register person, bringing it back to Tweek. After he packs it up, they head out and Craig googles “parks near me.” They head over to some inner-city park that lies in the center of the city — it’s pretty lame, but they find a spot by a bridge and sit there, looking at the water.

The grass is cool and the sun is hot. 

Tweek is reading through his notes.

“Tweek,” Craig says. He doesn’t look at him. “Tweek.” He doesn’t look at him. Craig sighs. He reaches over and pulls the notes away, receiving a hard glare and _whine_ from the boy next to him that he enjoys hearing _way_ too much — it feels _creepy._

“ _Craig_!”

Tweek tries to take it back but he holds it up high, above his head where Tweek cannot reach until he stands up but Craig hastily stands as well — holding it above his head — Tweek trying to grab it but failing very miserably — not even _close_ to reaching it. Craig has to hold his grin.

“You’re such an asshole!” Tweek cries out, evidently realizing there is no way he can reach it and crossing his arms, glaring.

“Tweek,” _honey —_ why is the word on the tip of his tongue. “You need to slow down — you need to … take a break, okay? That was … a lot back there.”

Tweek glares but he eventually says, “okay, you’re right… now give me my notebook.”

He stares at him a moment. “You’re lying, aren’t you?” He asks. “You’re just going to immediately go back into this shit if I give it back, aren’t you?”

Tweek frowns and it’s obvious that was his exact plan. “I thought you were a better actor, Tweek,” he can’t help but smirk slightly, holding Tweek’s notebook above his head — having all Tweek’s attention on him.

“Shut up,” he retorts. “Give it to me,” he tries to grab it again. His arm brushes against Craig’s. He fails again and then pouts.

“Come on, let’s just talk about why this is so important to you… can we?” He asks.

Tweek sighs and nods, sitting down. Craig sits down beside him, putting the notebook on the other side of him. Tweek picks at the grass. 

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because. You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

Craig sighs. “What is it?”

“I think… I think, ah, I think my parents …,” then he stops. He swallows, meeting Craig’s eyes. “Kenny dies and comes back to life — all the fucking time — he’s died… he’s fucking died like a thousand times or something.”

“Uh… what?”

“No one ever remembers — it’s almost like…” his eyes click. His eyebrows twist. He goes on his phone and completely ignores Craig. He is texting — fingers moving fast. Craig stares.

_What the fuck._

“Tweek?” He prompts. Still on his phone. “Tweek!” He flashes a hand over his face.

He sets his phone down next to him and meets Craig’s eyes, “no one ever remembers — Kenny said I saw him die a bunch of times too, but … after the meth, after that, that’s when I started to remember.”

Craig’s eyebrows fold inward. “I am … really confused.”

“Kenny dies, Craig — he is like fucking … invincible.”

“I, uh,” he clears his throat. _Okay. Kenny is an immortal being, that’s cool._ “How does this deal with … the aliens — why they are so important to you… your parents?”

“I think my parents — I think they were being … I don’t know … _working_ with aliens. I know it sounds insane, but it’s fucking _South Park_ , man. Kenny’s parents — they made the meth for my parents — I used to always get the packages from them — sometimes I would see strobes of light coming from his house — their garage, and shit only got fucking weirder when I found out about Kenny.”

“My parents — they were always so fucking weird — sometimes it didn’t even seem like they were _parents_ — it just seemed like they were voiced to say these things but I don’t know … they just never seemed there, you know?”

“Uh … yeah… your parents were always fucking weird.”

“I felt like my dad was mechanical; like he was — I don’t know, like someone had taken a generator of popular media and idioms, and made him … bizzare metaphors that never seemed to have any fucking relation to what I was saying — and my mom! she was just like void…,” he gulps. “I know you noticed … I know you noticed how Sally was… tell me my mom wasn’t like that too.”

Craig stares, like always, he has no fucking idea what to say but he just feels _bad_ because… because his parents suck and Tweek is trying to create this narrative where they are decent — where they are horrible because of _aliens_ and he just … he feels so bad.

“Tweek… your parents… you…,” he gulps at his big eyes on him. He swallows. “I felt really cold around her. Like really, really fucking cold.”

“I… didn’t.” Tweek stares, eyebrows pushed together. “You always said my house was freezing… but I…,” he swallows. “I was never cold.”

“Maybe I’m just more easily cold than you.” Tweek bites his lip. Craig is putting what Tweek says together and he doesn’t like where it’s going. He swallows. “And besides… what I think you’re getting at… I never feel cold around you,” he confesses, a metaphor probably somewhere in there, Tweek’s eyes on his. 

“You think I’m crazy.”

“No,” _honestly, he doesn’t — he should, but. “_ But not everything has an answer Tweek. Especially in South Park.”

He knows what he says doesn’t matter — Tweek is still going to make it his life’s mission to figure this out. He sighs. He guesses the only thing he can do is stand beside him.

* * *

They take an Uber. It’s at some beach — by some large cliff-like-rocks, at the end of the beach where no one really hangs around — instead they are on the beach, away from the rocky terrain and laid out on the hot sand.

Tweek starts climbing onto the rocks — boulders, more like it — and Craig cautiously and hesitantly follows him, mumbling about how this is not a good idea but getting ignored. Tweek does what he wants and that is never going to change.

They manage to get on top of the cliffs. Craig looks over and sees there was a much easier way to get up here — a pathway from the beach it appears — they will be taking that back for sure. 

There is a little girl flying a kite with her parents sitting nearby and another girl — someone probably their age — posing in front of the ocean, their friend taking a picture. 

“What are we supposed to be looking for?”

“Anything unusual.”

They don’t find anything though — which isn’t shocking; all the articles said these areas were completely barren of any possible evidence. Tweek keeps looking nonetheless until Craig nearly begs him to stop. 

He is honestly shocked when his begging works and they take a seat at the edge of the cliff overlooking the water. It’s pretty — very pretty, but then Tweek is talking and well, he comes to the conclusion, Tweek is way prettier.

“I know I shouldn’t have expected to find anything, but I thought I would at least find _something,_ even if it was super small, or questionable if it was even from the abduction — I just thought I would get _something_ out of this.”

Craig frowns slightly. “We tried. It’s the only thing you can do.”

“ _Trying_ won’t give me answers.” It’s a sharp, hostile response but Tweek is quick to realize the hostility, immediately following with, “I’m sorry — I don’t mean to be so … bitchy, I just wanted more out of this.”

Craig nods. Tweek is looking down. He looks at his blond hair.

“Thank you for coming with me today,” he tilts his head up, his gray eyes coming in contact with his. His voice is soft, the edge completely gone. “Really,” he says solemnly. “I really… I didn’t want to do this alone but I thought I would have to.”

Craig swallows and he thinks of everything else Tweek probably had to do alone but shouldn’t have had to do alone. He hopes Kenny was there for him in those times, but even Kenny cannot be there all the time. 

He doesn’t exactly know how to respond. He wants to say something relating to the fact that he has left him to go through too many things alone, but all that comes out is, “you’re welcome, Tweek.” 

They stare at each other and Craig thinks about kissing him — thinks about if his lips still feel the same as they did when they were thirteen and Craig had braces. He imagines they feel different now — they _look_ different now. They seem fuller, just better shaped and his beautiful, round, full cheeks have been molded perfectly next to his flawless cheekbones. He wants nothing more than to lean forward and kiss him — wants to hold him and run his fingers through his thick, blond hair, but all he can do is stare — all he can do is sit here and think about where they would be if he hadn’t _broken up_ with him.

It makes him so sad that he looks away — to the ocean, a beautiful view, but nothing compared to Tweek.

They sit there for a little while longer before Tweek pulls out his notebook and shows him the bus stop they have to walk to — then where _that_ bus will take them and the transits that will follow. Craig does not quite pay attention but just focuses on Tweek’s irises instead — how his gray eyes sort of match the ocean.

The bus stop is luckily only half a mile away, and this time, they talk — about the ocean compared to the mountains and California compared to Colorado — they both agree mountains and Colorado trump the ocean and California.

The ride back to San Francisco is just as long and tiring as the first, the sun setting on the second transit. But then Tweek falls asleep, his head falling onto his shoulder; making the trip back immensely better than the trip there.

  
  


When they get back, Clyde, Token, and Jimmy already have a bonfire started, a few beer cans surrounding them. They join them around the fire, but Craig can tell Tweek feels antsy to go look over his notebooks for probably the hundredth time. After a couple hours, Tweek says he is going to bed. Craig does not follow him this time because that would probably be weird, but he I’d really tired.

As soon as he is gone, his friends are asking him questions about today which he all just brushes off — he said he went with him because he met his cousin before and she is cool. They try to press him for more but he does not budge.

He eventually goes to his room because he is struggling to keep his eyes open. He is not surprised when he finds Tweek sitting on their bed, his notes surrounding him and laptop open. 

“I knew I’d find you like this.”

Tweek looks up, startled. The piece of paper in his hand wrinkles beneath his grip. “There is _more_ Craig, I can’t believe I missed it but there are more girls — I searched missing with no evidence and I found a bunch of different articles — dating even farther back.”

Craig blinks.

“Tweek,” he frowns, “I actually came here for bed, do you think we can hold off the alien hunt for tomorrow?”

Tweek sort of pouts but reluctantly nods as he starts to put the stuff back into his bag. Craig grabs his tooth brush and pajamas and makes his way to the bathroom.

When he returns, all Tweek’s stuff is in his bag, the bed clear. Tweek was already wearing his clothes for bed. He is under the covers now. Craig asks if he should then off the light; Tweek says yes.

He climbs into bed with him. Tweek lays on his side, facing _Craig’s_ side. He mimics him, facing the blonde. It’s dark — he can barely see but he can make out the outlines of his features — the glow of his light eyes. 

“There are so many more girls, Craig,” Tweek whispers. “All the same day — the police have to know this, they have to put it together — they must be hiding something.”

Craig is not sure he believes in any of this stuff still but he does agree it’s weird the police have not spotted this connection. “That is weird, but cops are dumb.”

“I was thinking about calling the stations and asking some questions.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“You don’t think anything is a good idea.”

Craig frowns. “I just don’t think they will give you any info — they are pretty confidential when it comes to that stuff.”

“Maybe I can pose as another detective — or, _oh_ , a family member who wants to know more about the case.”

Craig knows he is going to call — there is no use in trying to talk him out of it so he just plays along, “that could work.” He yawns, his eyes sort of dropping. Tweek is staring at him. “I’m really tired, Tweek…,” he mumbles out in worn out words.

“Sorry — I don’t mean to keep you up.”

His eyes close on himself. “You can keep talking, but I might fall asleep…” he warns, voice low and groggy.

He thinks he hears a giggle.

“I may as well be talking to myself then.”

“I want you to keep talking,” he hears himself saying. “Keep talking.”

It’s relaxing. It’s peaceful. It is what he wants to hear while he goes to sleep.

There is a pause but then he hears his voice again, “okay, well, in California there have been four similar cases but California is huge as _fuck_ so I’m not surprised…”

He continues talking, Craig falling asleep to his words. Tonight, they fall asleep facing one another.

  
  


* * *

  
  


When he wakes up, Tweek is still sleeping. He has his blankets pulled up to his chin, looking so peaceful. His eyelashes are long and thick, his eyelids huge to cover his owlish eyes. He wants to continue to stare but comes to the conclusion that it is indeed extremely creepy, looking away.

He goes on his phone for a couple minutes, not willing to leave the bed yet, and as he scrolls mindlessly through social media, Tweek opens his eyes and looks up at Craig, sort of smiling and causing his stomach to do a flip. His bed head is incredibly attractive.

“Hey,” Tweek murmurs, “what time is it?”

“Nine-Twelve.”

Tweek nods, leaning over the bed to grab his own phone.

He moves his fingers against his phone. “Kenny thinks the technology the aliens use to delete memories could have to do with no one remembering him dying all the time.”

“What?”

Tweek stares at him. 

What the _fuck_ is he talking about? Kenny dying all the time? What? _Internally_? Sometimes Kenny can be super fucking broody.

Tweek just sighs and shakes his head, “just — nevermind. I think I’m going to call the police departments today.”

Craig chews on his inner cheek. “When? I mean — you are going to hang out with us all today, right?” Craig asks. “I think we are going to that bridge. That’s what they were talking about yesterday night.”

“ _That_ bridge,” Tweek actually giggles. Holy fuck, he is going to fall over. “You mean _The Golden Gate Bridge —_ one of the biggest tourist attractions in the United States?”

Craig nods.

Tweek giggles again and his stomach is going _wild_ with butterflies. “How do you stay so apathetic to everything?” He inquires. 

Craig shrugs. There is definitely one thing — _person_ , more so — he cannot be apathetic about, no matter how hard he tries,

“Yeah, I’m going to go. I just figured I’d call now — before everyone gets up.”

Craig nods, eyeing the door. He doesn’t think their friends are awake; it’s way too quiet for them to be awake, but who knows — they could surprise him and burst through that door in any second.

Tweek makes the call — Craig just watching. Tweek uses his best actor skills, pretending to be the father of one of the missing girls; he calls one police station where the girl is still missing, and another where the girl has been found. He challenges them on evidence found, nodding and humming; scoffing at some points and threatening to go to higher authority if information is not released. When he hangs up, he tells Craig they told him, “the information is classified, sir, we told you — it’s been confiscated by the federal government — they took the case from us and all the evidence along with it.”

_Weird._

But at least they are taking this shit seriously. It seems like it would have bigger media coverage though — most horrifying news stories about child abduction always do.

Tweek believes that this is just more concrete evidence to prove aliens are involved — Craig is not too sure.

Their bedroom door erupts open, Clyde shouting at them that it is time to get up; their conversation about aliens and child abduction halting. 

* * *

The Golden Gate Bridge is full of tourists, as is every other part of California.

They take pictures — way too many fucking pictures. Clyde says he needs a new “insta-post.”

They end up renting bikes and crossing the Golden Gate Bridge with them, which is actually pretty cool, but sort of scary in a way. Craig takes a long back at Tweek as they ride along the pathway over the bridge. He looks obviously scared. Craig rides next to him. 

Jimmy just catches a ride from one of those bikers with a hatch attached to the back.

They ride their bikes to some town called Sausalito that has multiple gift shops and restaurants. They find one of the interchangeable rental bike racks and put them back in their slots so they can walk through the town. 

It’s cute, along the water, full of gift shops that Clyde drags them all in. Clyde gets a shirt with the Golden Gate Bridge on it — suggesting they all get matching tees, but Jimmy is the only one who seems to like the idea, buying one of his own.

Tweek buys some healing crystals from one of the shops, shoving them in his pockets after purchase. Craig asks him what they do, and after listening to his explanation of each one being sold, Craig buys one as well — not really _believing_ in it, but it elicits a sort of surprised, excited smile from Tweek which is the only thing that _really_ matters.

They go to some pizza place and share a large pizza and cheesy bread — Token Saying he will cover it when the bill comes, even though Clyde probably should considering he ate the most of it.

They walk through the town until it gets repetitive, then head back across the bridge with rental bikes and Jimmy in his hatch. The sun is still high in the sky. They go to a park.

It kind of reminds Craig of the park in San Jose — in the middle of the city. It’s more crowded than the park in San Jose, but it is nicer, in view of the bridge.

Tweek tells him The Golden Gate Bridge is the most popular spot for people to kill themselves in the US. It’s a very gruesome fact but Craig doesn’t mind Tweek’s gruesome facts — he sort of likes them, in a way. They always help to get the full image of something.

  
  


* * *

The sun sets and they go back to their Airbnb. When the pile up into Token’s 2021 Audi SQ7, Tweek sits in the middle this time in the back, Craig on his right. Tweek sort of rests his leg against Craig’s. Craig does not move away. When he looks over on the other side of Tweek, he notices Tweek is not touching Clyde at all. He is closer to him — his leg, his thigh, his whole freaking body — is all close to Craig, pressed to his side without being pressed — there but not really.

He tries to not think too much into it.

Just like the rest of the nights, they have a bonfire to end the night. Tweek actually seems less ansty tonight — stays until the fire is out.

When they go to sleep, they face each other again; Tweek’s freezing ankle and foot coming in contact with his own. He says, “your feet are so warm,” and giggles. He keeps his foot rested on top of his own as they fall asleep. Craig, again, tries to not read into it.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


On the fourth morning, three days before they leave, Craig wakes up shivering. When he looks at his phone, it’s only six am. He tries to go back to sleep but it’s too cold. Tweek has shifted even closer to him low — his legs touching his and arm draped over his shoulder.

Tweek’s skin is freezing against his own — goosebumps ripple among his arms. Tweek opens his eyes a moment later.

Before he can move from Tweek’s touch or say anything, something peers out of the corner of oh his eye. He whips his head in the direction, Tweek mirroring him.

A blue ray of light blinds him — he hears Tweek yelp; Tweek lunges onto him; Craig grabs onto him — all goes black,

  
  


* * *

He wakes up in his bedroom — his childhood bedroom; his bedroom in _Colorado_. It’s his bedroom but it’s full of blue… ish light.

Is this a dream?

“Craig Tucker — I am visiting you as a warning; end your investigation. Do not dig any further into these cases or you cause chaos among the public. We come in peace; we want no harm, but if you do not end this investigation, then we will have to take action against you.”

“What — who are you? How am I in my room right now? _Where is Tweek?”_

“You’re friend is fine. He is safe. He is being talked to by another.”

Craig squints. It’s blurry, bright, _blue — cold._

“To answer your other questions: we have just _replicated_ your room — we figured it would bring you a sense of peace and calmness. We did not want to fear you, Craig Tucker. We come in peace.”

“Yeah. Who is _we?”_

“We are, I suppose, intergalactic life forms.”

“You’re shitting me. _Aliens_? You’re fucking aliens?”

“That term is _outdated_ and _offensive_ in our culture,” the voice, the _orb_ grows louder. “Please do not refer to us as that. We see our deception on human media. It is not who we are.”

Craig blinks. “Um, okay. Can you please just take me back to Tweek?”

“Sure, young human.”

* * *

His ears pop — they _hurt._ As the ringing subsides, he looks over in his arms and finds Tweek. He hears the rest of Tweek’s yell— almost as if it was cut off right in the middle. He feels like he is nauseous and has whiplash, spinning around, but then everything stops in place.

He is back in the Airbnb bedroom. Tweek’s mouth shuts, the end of his scream escaping his lips. They look at eachother, wild eyes, open and wide.

A moment later Clyde bursts through the door — “ _what happened?”_ The other two friends quickly pile behind him. “I heard a scream.”

Tweek is shaking but pulls away from him. Craig just now notices Clyde turned on the light.

“I-I had a, nngh, a n-nightmare.”

“Oh shit — you okay? You —,” Clyde starts walking in, _inviting_ himself in. Craig holds up his middle finger and a deathly glare, making Clyde’s eyebrows shoot up, his mouth forming a straight line.

“Just go away,” Craig demands.

Clyde nods and backs out of the doorway, closing the door behind him but leaving the light on.

He turns to Tweek. Without thinking, he holds onto his shoulders. “You okay?”

Tweek nods. 

Craig searches him. He brings him into an embrace, seemingly forgetting it’s been five years since he has done this. Tweek forgets too though, his arms coming around him, his body falling into his — weighing on him, going completely limp as he buries his head into his shoulder.

Craig’s rubs his back.

“You believe in, ah, aliens now?”

“Intergalactic life forms.”

“What?”

“That’s what they said they wanted to be called.”

“ _What?_ What the fuck are you talking about, man?

“They said that is what they liked to be called,” Craig restates. Tweek pulls away and gives him a dubious look, making Craig think maybe it really was a dream. “They said… it was an offensive term to call them aliens.”

“What the fuck —,” Tweek completely lets him go. “What did you talk about with them?”

“What did _you_?”

“Fucking everything, man!”

Craig pushes his eyebrows together. 

“I got all my answers.”

“All in thirty seconds?”

“Thirty seconds! Ah,” Tweek shakes his head, jerking slightly, “I was with them for at least an hour.”

“ _Weird_.”

Craig lays back down, and Tweek lays on his side, facing him. “That was fucking _insane.”_

Craig turns on his side, eyeing him — Tweek’s eyes are wide and his face is tense. He twitches slightly. “Are you okay?” He asks again.

“I — I’m fine, I think,” he swallows. “Are you okay — you believe it now, right? You know I’m not crazy? You believe in them?”

He can barely even think, let alone question the fucking existence of alien life forms — _sorry,_ intergalactic life forms, and whether or not they just fucking _abducted_ him for a short period of time. “I feel like me saying yes would be admitting you were right all this time and I don’t know if I’m emotionally prepared for that.”

Tweek smacks him, and Craig actually smiles — smiles through the absolute batshit that just happened. “Why are you always such a fucking smart ass?” 

A long moment passes, Tweek’s smile fading. He takes a deep breath in, telling him the intergalactic life forms were friendly but stern with their message, no more digging into these cases.

In return, they granted whatever he wanted to know:

They were abducting the girls. They have been collecting humans to create new life forms — a new species — they reside in another galaxy on a planet of their own. The girls stay as mothers — Sally was sent back because she lost the baby. All the other females who return are infertile. They used the memory device on her but she became somewhat tolerant to its power because she had intergalactic life inside her at one point. 

The meth was from the intergalactic life forms — his father worked with them for power and finance; it was original the McCormicks who were involved, but once they started selling the McCormick meth, the intergalactic life forms contacted the Tweaks as well — his mother _was_ somewhat brainwashed, in a way, but not anymore than those girls who were abducted — the meth was laced with intergalactic technology to keep track and understand humans — gathered data from them with each use.

The McCormicks got involved with the intergalactic life forms on simple coincidence of being the people the intergalactic life forms chose for _their_ meth operation — the McCormicks were already making it, and they were in such a small town — it wouldn’t attract any unwanted attention.

And Kenny, Kenny (who apparently dies all the time and then comes back to life?) died at six months old. His parents let him accidentally drown in the bathtub. They begged the intergalactic life forms to do something — _save_ him, and they did — and in addition to saving him, used their technology to protect him from ever dying again — he would always come back to life if he encountered death and with their technology, they made sure that no one would remember his death to save the grief. 

Most of it's shocking but honestly he is just happy Tweek finally has his answers.

“So what are you going to do now…?”

“I guess tell Kenny.”

* * *

Yosemite is the plan today. 

After Tweek recounted what the intergalactic life forms told him — he FaceTimed Kenny, and even though it was barely seven in the morning, he picked up. Tweek took him through everything that happened — Kenny latched onto every word. He wondered how involved Kenny was in this big ol’ alien hunt. He seemed very interested in what Tweek is saying, but he supposed any normal person would be.

They don’t tell their friends for obvious reasons. It makes Craig feel closer to Tweek; they have a shared secret, a shared experience that no one else has. He knows he should care more about the fucking aliens but all he really can think about is _Tweek._

Yosemite is probably his favorite part of the trip; full of deep valleys and waterfalls. The hike is long — his legs and feet hurt badly. He runs out of water halfway through a hike and feels like he might be dehydrated. Tweek lets him take a sip of his water bottle though.

The hiking trail leads to closer view of the waterfall. They sit down for awhile, Craig sharing a seat on a log with Tweek. They eat the granola bars Clyde packed and talk about stupid childhood memories, such as a the time they rode the e-scooters on Halloween or when their whole class had lice. It’s nice. It’s nostalgic in a way that doesn’t quite make sense because he has never been to Yosemite before, but maybe its nostalgic feelings come from being with his friends — he is going to miss them when they all part ways. He hasn’t really wanted to think about it, but in this moment, as he looks around — Jimmy trying to tell a joke, Clyde attempting to balance on a log, and Token taking pictures for Nichole — he realizes he really _will_ miss them.

He looks over at Tweek. 

His eyes are trained on the waterfall, a toothless smile on his face. 

Tweek is only going to be twenty minutes away but will he _see_ him? They never hung out alone before — sure, he could hang out with him and _Kenny,_ but that’s also not a thing he really did before. He hung out with Tweek in this group. He supposes he still will have Clyde, so maybe they will hang out together as Tweek, Clyde, Kenny, Craig. Maybe.

He feels closer to Tweek — after everything they have gone through — he feels like they are friends again but what if after all this — after the trip, it just fades back to nothing?

He still hasn’t gotten an answer — a real answer — on what Tweek will do now. His plans were to hunt for aliens before, but he has now got his answers — he has been told to stop. 

With his friends being busy, he asks, “so… seriously… what are your plans now? Now that you’ve,” he lowers his voice in a whisper, “found the aliens.”

Tweek meets his gaze. He shrugs. “I don’t know, honestly — I guess I should stop though, I don’t want to have a fucking alien bounty on my head.”

Craig smirks. “No, no, that’d probably be bad.”

Tweek nods. He looks at the waterfall again. “Still move out of South Park — get an apartment with Kenny. Find a shitty job — try to find a new hyperfixation,” he smiles a little with the words, “I’m sure it will find me though.”

Craig chuckles. He bites his lip. _Where do we go from here._

“What about you?” Tweek asks.

“Uh, I mean,” he shrugs. He eyes the waterfall. “Just go on with my life — do the same stuff I was going to do; just with the knowledge of aliens existing, I guess.”

“This didn’t inspire you to become an astronaut?”

Craig can’t explain why but he chuckles. “No. I don’t think being abducted will help me with pass physics, unfortunately.”

Tweek hums. He also gazes at the waterfall. “Maybe I’ll become a pianist — I’ll work at some jazz club and play the piano, and I’ll be all mysterious; no one will know anything about me and everyone will whisper around me, but I’ll just play my songs and leave.” Tweek pauses and then continues. “Or, I’ll open a bakery — I’ll make cupcakes and decorate them, and I’ll make some instagram page to sell them with — Kenny can be my delivery guy, and we can partner up on a cupcake business — or I can become an actor. I can move to LA and star in a bunch of indie films.”

Craig just smiles at him, in awe. He wishes he had at least half of the passion Tweek has — half of the interest; maybe he would have some idea of what he wants to do with his life, then. Tweek’s problem is that he has _too_ many interests, while Craig has almost zero.

“What?” Tweek asks him, dipping his chin down slightly, his silvery eyes twinkling with interest. 

“Nothing,” he reassures, a grin still across his face. “Would you really move to California?”

Tweek looks away. With a pause, he responds, “probably not, but it’s fun to think about — but the smog here is really bad, I would probably develop lung cancer or something.”

Craig continues to stare at him even though he should probably look at the waterfall. “Well, I think you can do any of that.”

Tweek glances at him, a smile that shows his teeth spreading across his face. He thinks he sees blush too. “And I think you could be the first person to touch mars.”

Craig looks at the waterfall, blushing and smiling, butterflies in his stomach; his cheeks hurting from grinning so hard.

* * *

Like the nights before, they have a bonfire — it’s the last night they can stay up late. Tomorrow night, they will have to go to bed early to wake up the next morning at six am to head back to South Park. 

They have a bonfire until the last piece of wood burns out. They all get ready for bed and retreat to their rooms. Tonight, it’s Tweek that turns off the light and crawls in bed next to him. They lie on their sides — facing each other.

“Do you think they are going to abduct us again?”

“I hope not — that whole thing made me feel sick.”

Tweek giggles even though he does not think he said anything funny.

“It does feel good to know I was right this whole time…” Tweek says, “I know I didn’t gloat much earlier; but I just was too freaked out to do so.”

“Yeah, go ahead and gloat. You deserve it.”

Tweek smiles. “Mmm, I told you so. I told you so. I told you so. I was right. You were _wrong,”_ his voice trails gleefully, breaking off into giggles. “Okay… I think I got it all out…”

Craig smiles, but then the smile falls and he remembers — remembers the break up, and listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide every day for the month that followed, even though he was the one to break up with Tweek.

“Do you think we would still be together if I believed back then?” He blurts out.

He sees through the dark that Tweek’s eyes widen. Tweek takes a deep breath in. Craig does too.

“I don’t know, I — a lot happened after that.” His voice is low and breathy.

Craig pauses. “I thought it was gonna be like every other time we broke up,” he confesses, voice low and quiet — he feels like a ten year old again. “I didn’t think… I didn’t think that was going to be it. I know that’s really dumb.”

“I thought so too,” Tweek responds. He can see his lips rise sort of at the corners but there is sadness in his eyes. “But…,” he gulps, “then everything sort of went to shit.”

Craig takes in a ragged breath. “Y-yeah,” he agrees. “I should have tried to be there for you more.”

“No,” Tweek responds. “I didn’t — I didn’t want to talk to anyone. That isn’t your fault.”

Craig stares at him, swallowing. He searches his eyes for something — to see if he is telling the truth, if he really does not hold any grudges against him. Tweek stares back — then he is leaning forward, inching closer, his eyes shifting between his eyes and lips. Craig licks his lips, his chest heavy, his eyes falling to Tweek’s lips as the space between them fades, replaced with Tweek’s lips.

His heart races as he parts his lips against the other boy’s. They feel the same as they did when they were thirteen; just _better._ His mouth is warm; his tongue brushes past his lips as they move closer together, Tweek’s chest against his own, his hands against his back, Tweek’s hands on his arms. 

He doesn’t want to let go — he is too afraid to — if he lets go, he will lose him again. He deepens the kiss, his hold on the boy tightening. His hair is soft in his hands; Tweek’s nails are sharp, digging into his skin. He melts away into his lips, his body dissolving into sensation and raw emotions — his lungs desperate for air, but his lips unresponsive to the pleas; still connected with Tweek’s.

Tweek’s lips pull from his own, but his eyes remain shut a moment afterward, his mouth agape. He can’t move — can’t process — is completely frozen in time with his lips tingling and brain fuzzy. Taking a deep breath in, he opens his eyes. Tweek is smiling at him. He puts a thumb on his tingling bottom lip, letting out a deep breath, his chest moving up and down. He feels breathless as he stares at the boy next to him with glowing eyes and messy hair.

He finally shuts his mouth and then Tweek nuzzles close to him — head to his chest and arm draped over his waist — his heart still beating rapidly. Craig holds him close. Breathes in his hair. Closes his eyes. Falls asleep. Tweek in his arms.

* * *

When he wakes up, he and Tweek have separated slightly but their feet are still touching and Tweek’s arm is still draped across his waist. He is still asleep. Craig stares at him and finds himself leaning closer, bringing him closer to himself — his finger tracing over his shoulder.

Tweek’s stirs slightly, his eyes fluttering open; gray eyes suddenly looking up at him. 

“Sorry… Did I wake you? I thought you were a heavy sleeper now…”

“Maybe the alien invasion changed that,” Tweek mumbles, voice raspier than usual due to the early morning. His lips sort of twitch into a smile, “this is definitely a better way to wake up though.”

Craig grins, and then, Tweek is reaching up and kissing him again and he thinks he may die. Tweek hands wrap around his neck, pulling him over him, deepening the kiss. Craig is on top of him, thigh between his legs and arm wrapped around his torso. It feels like a dream — a wonderful, amazing dream — the ferocity of Tweek’s kissing and the curiosity of his wandering hands down his neck and back. A small moan, groan, noise — makes its way in the back of his throat.

He has never been this happy this early in the morning.

Tweek withdraws his lips after a long period of time, staring great up at him in a very innocent and endearing way — a toothless smile across his lips. He pushes black hair out of Craig’s eyes and keeps his hand on his cheek. 

Craig is about to lean in again but then the door fucking opens — fucking _Clyde._ He jumps off Tweek, heart racing, lying beside him now. Clyde’s eyes are bulging, blush on his face, but he is grinning ear to ear. “I was gonna tell you guys to get up, but…. I see you already are… don’t mind me… continue what you were doing…,” he closes the door, disappearing.

Craig groans. Tweek is covering his face.

“Literally no fucking privacy.”

* * *

“So… you and Tweek, huh?” Token says to him when they are alone. “What’s going on there?”

They returned to the beach for their last day. Craig and Token reside on the beach while the rest of their friends swim.

“I don’t know. We kissed. Twice.”

“Ooooo,” Token teases.

“I don’t know if it means anything. It was just kissing.”

He doesn’t want to think about it; he just wants to enjoy it. He doesn’t want to question what it means or where it’s going — he just wants to enjoy it because for right now, it’s amazing. 

Kenny kissed him before too, even gave him a hand job, it didn’t mean anything. He doesn’t want to assume anything. If assumes anything then that will lead him to possibly being disappointed.

* * *

On the last night, they do not have a bonfire; instead, going to bed early for the early departure tomorrow. Tweek doesn’t kiss him tonight, but he does cuddle beside him.

The road trip home is long, but he sits by Tweek, and Tweek leans into him — traces shapes on his knees and smiles at him, making his insides burn, so it’s remarkably better than the road trip here.

When it is Craig’s turn to drive, Tweek sits in the passenger seat again and when nighttime falls and the others fall asleep, Tweek stays awake.

Making _sure,_ they are asleep, Craig swallows and says, “Tweek… I don’t want to go back how things were before.”

Tweek beams at him, “I thought that was obvious.”

Craig smiles at him. “You didn’t kiss me last night.”

“I’d kiss you now but you’re driving.”

Craig laughs, blushing. He lets out a deep breath. He swallows, glancing at the blonde. “But you will kiss me when we stop right? When we get back to South Park?”

“Yes,” Tweek nods, “but you know, you can kiss me, too.”

Craig blushes. “Okay. I will, but, you might regret saying that when you realize how much I will be kissing you.”

Tweek giggles. “I don’t think so. I don’t think I could ever get sick of kissing you.”

Craig groans, tightening onto the steering wheel. Suddenly, he is pulling to the side of the road, putting his hazards on; Tweek mumbling, _what are you doing,_ before Craig’s lips crash into his mouth.

“I couldn’t wait,” he grins against Tweek’s lips. A giggle elicits from Tweek’s mouth before their lips are pressed to each other again. 

On the side of some road in Wyoming, they make out in Token’s 2021 Audi SQ7, their friends sleeping in the back seat — until Tweek pulls away and tells him to drive; they will continue this in South Park, and wherever it is that follows. 

  
  
  



End file.
